Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printer, a copying machine, a facsimile machine, and other electrophotographic image forming apparatuses and particularly to a wet type image forming apparatus adopting wet development as a development scheme.
Description of the Related Art
In wet development, an amount of toner particles formed on a photoconductor should be controlled depending on a type of paper. Specifically, an amount of toner particles may be small when a surface of paper is smooth as in coated paper. When a surface of paper is rough as in bond paper, a necessary amount of toner particles is large for covering a surface (irregularities) of paper.
For example, when an amount of toner particles as much as that for coated paper is used for printing on bond paper, an amount of toner particles covering a surface of bond paper is short and quality of an image printed on bond paper is lowered. Thus, in order to prevent lowering in image quality, an amount of toner particles on a photoconductor is changed depending on a type of paper and an amount of toner particles for adhesion onto paper is controlled.
The following two methods are available for control of an amount of toner particles on a photoconductor. A first method is a method of controlling an amount of toner particles to be moved to a photoconductor during development after a layer of a prescribed amount of toner particles is formed on a development roller. A second method is a method of controlling an amount of toner particles on a development roller.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publications Nos. 2012-068372, 2008-299065, 2008-083133, 2007-155999, 2005-234430, 2004-286859, 2003-228242, 11-065289, and 09-211994 are exemplified as documents disclosing a technique for controlling an amount of toner particles on a development roller.